Story name: A 'Taur's Tail
Author: Stephen Tigner
Publication date: July 4, 2000 (original on TSA-Talk)
Note: The following summary describes a revised version of this story, posted on MKGuild on April 4th, 2012. Follow this link to read.
Date: 690s CR
Location: Yamato
Overview
The warrior Kishu and his kirin companion Rakurai search for the man who destroyed a village.
Summary
Kishu wakes up late, which his kirin companion Rakurai teases. After eating breakfast, they continue on their journey. The village they are headed, however, is on fire; in the ensuing search, they rescue a girl named Hiryuu, a married couple, and 3 newly orphaned baby boys (but not before assuring their dying mother they will be safe). The married couple tell Kishu that an evil wizard would kidnap someone from their village every year. The wizard burned the village when Hiryuu's parents, leaders of the village, protested. Kishu asks the couple to care for the four children, and he and Rakurai set off to the wizard's castle.
The next village looks abandoned. Kishu searches and finds a girl named Akane, who says the wizard zapped her parents. She leads Kishu to a barn, where all of the villagers are inside, half-transformed into grotesque animal people. Kishu suggests taking her away for her safety, and her father agrees. Akane picks up a strange cat, which turns out to be a bakeneko. The cat glows and turns into a wisp, flying into her and reshaping the girl into a busty, teenage cat-girl. She cries and purrs as Kishu hugs her and promises that he'll get revenge on the wizard.
Kishu and Rakurai continue into the mountains. The wizard laughs and sets a wolf pack on them. The samurai and kirin defeat them, but find that the wolves have human-like legs, more victims of the wizard's spells. They continue to the castle gates, where Kishu must copy a pattern of colors from another pedestal. Each pattern gets longer and harder, but after a 30-long sequence, he is declared a winner and allowed to pass.
As they enter the dark castle entrance, the floor glows and traps Kishu and Rakurai. A mist arises and knocks Kishu out. When he awakes, his hands and feet are bound behind him, and Rakurai is imprisoned inside a magic circle. The wizard is Manorishi, a familiar enemy to Kishu. He is still up to his old tricks, releasing shapeshifting bakemono into villages so that they can breed with humans. Manorishi shows Kishu his latest refinements, forcing Kishu to watch as he pours the essences of a spider and a fox on a small boy, turning him into an 8-legged fox-man.
Manorishi laughs at Kishu's disgust, and begins another spell, this time to extract Rakurai's essence. Kishu, however, is double-jointed, and is able to escape and attack Manorishi. The wizard stabs him and pushes him away, triumphant. Kishu's blood crosses the floor and touches Rakurai's magic circle, creating magical sparks and breaking the circle. Rakurai rears and kicks Manorishi across the room, breaking the bottle with Rakurai's captured essence. The circle continues to crackle, striking both Kishu and Rakurai as the essence is flowing back. Both scream and pass out as the magical explosion levels the castle.
When Kishu awakes, the wizard, the boy, and Rakurai are gone, and Kishu's lower half was been transformed into a horse. Kishu calls for Rakurai, who mentally responds uneasily that he can't feel his body, but he just saw Kishu's hands. Kishu then realizes that he has fused with his friend's body. After a long silence, Kishu asks how to stand up. They laugh together in the ruins.
Original Version
This is the version currently on the Metamor Keep archive. Its canonicity is uncertain. There are several changes from the revised version, ranging from minor to major.
- Rakurai is a unicorn instead.
- Akane is named Koneko. The bakeneko was just an ordinary cat. Instead of turning into a wisp, it glowed and melted into Koneko.
- Akane still ages into a teenager, but becomes busty and sultry. The village women are similarly sexualized with multiple breasts. Kishu identifies the wolves not by their human-like legs, but by their humanish breasts.
The story was entirely rewritten from part 4 onward, and is summarized as follows:
Kishu and Rakurai enter the castle and trapped by the glowing floor, but they are not knocked out. The wizard, who is nameless here, performs his experiment on the boy, but with a real spider and fox that glow and melt into his body. The boy transforms into an 8- or 10- legged foxtaur, but also becomes a busty female. The wizard forces Kishu to walk towards Rakurai and merge with him. Kishu's leg merge into Rakurai's body, and Rakurai's head disappears into Kishu's torso, and Kishu grows equine ears, though he soon finds that Rakurai's mind has somehow been preserved inside of Kishu's.
The wizard approaches with a jar he's saved just for Kishu, but a figure leaps on the wizard, crushing the vial upon him. The wizard screams in horror as he is transformed, body and mind, into a donkey. The figure is Koneko, and the boy is her brother (now sister) Kit. They embrace and thank Kishu, who promises to find some way to restore Koneko's village. The two siblings return home, while Kishu (with Rakurai's help) gallops into the sunset.
Characters
Main Characters:
- Kishu: A wandering samurai of Yamato. While wandering down the road on an unspecified mission, he saw villages ruined by the evil wizard Manorishi and promised to avenge them. He is fused with Rakurai, but is still seeking a cure for the villages, as well as vengeance upon the wizard.
- He carries a single small bag of food and supplies. He is armed with a katana and a bow and arrow.
- There is an interesting (though unrevealed) story behind how he met Rakurai. Very few know it.
- Rakurai: A kirin, Kishu's steed and companion. In the original version, he was a unicorn. He was fused with Kishu, and retains his mind, but is left under Kishu's control.
- He was able to speak telepathically to humans selectively. After his merge with Kishu, it's not certain whether he can still talk to other humans, or just chooses not to.
- His real name is unpronounceable to humans.
- Kirins look much like unicorns to the west, and are easily mistaken for them.
- Manorishi: A wizard. He has been interested in transforming people for some time, collecting the essences of humans and the half-human hybrids bred between them and shapeshifting creatures. He has recently learned to create hybrids directly with essences. He is knocked out by Rakurai's kick, but he disappears while Kishu and Rakurai are knocked out.
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- In the original version, he is turned into a female donkey.
- He would visit the villages and kidnap at least one person each time. He burned the first village when its leaders confronted him. In the second village, he had been breeding them with magic shapeshifted beasts for some time, but recently has been zapping the remaining humans into hybrids.
- He has a scrying glass, with which he watches Kishu approach.
- He keeps a knife hidden up his sleeve. He has a rack of weapons along his wall, which includes a spear.
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Minor Characters:
- Hiryuu, daughter of a village leader. She is rescued by Kishu, and adopted by a man and his wife who also survived.
- A mother of 3 boys. She is fatally wounded when Rakurai appears. Rakurai promises that her children will be cared for, and she dies at peace.
- A man, one of the only survivors of the first village. He tells Kishu the story of their village, and gives him directions to the wizard's castle. He promises to care for Hiryuu and the 3 baby boys.
- He had lived in a beautiful house before it burned down.
- Akane: A young girl from the second village. Though she survives the initial transformation of the village, a bakeneko finds her in the barn, and transforms her into a teenage cat-girl.
- She has black fur and a long tail that splits into two. She has feet-paws and hand-paws with thumbs and retractable claws. She has cat teeth, whiskers, eyes, and ears, and a slightly reshapened nose, though she has kept her hair.
- In the original version, she was named Koneko. She rescued Kishu and her brother from the wizard.
- She has black fur and a long tail that splits into two. She has feet-paws and hand-paws with thumbs and retractable claws. She has cat teeth, whiskers, eyes, and ears, and a slightly reshapened nose, though she has kept her hair.
- Akane's parents. They were transformed by the wizard into half-horse people.
- In the original version, her mother has an additional pair of breasts.
- A young boy captured by Manorishi. He is transformed into an 8-legged fox man. His whereabouts are unknown, but he is likely still Manorishi's prisoner.
- He has fox-taur-like body, with four pairs of fox legs, and two more legs on his upper half (though he is described as having 8 legs altogether). He has a fluffy fox tail and a fox head. He is very muscular. He was garbed in oversized clothing.
- In the original version, he is named Kit and is Koneko's (Akane's) brother. He is turned into a female, with a pair of large breasts and knee-length blond hair.
- He has fox-taur-like body, with four pairs of fox legs, and two more legs on his upper half (though he is described as having 8 legs altogether). He has a fluffy fox tail and a fox head. He is very muscular. He was garbed in oversized clothing.
Cameo:
- 3 baby boys, orphaned when their mother dies. They are left in the care of a man and wife who also survived the fire.
- A member of the man's family, most likely his wife, who is rescued by Kishu and adopts Hiryuu and the 3 baby boys.
- Another family of the second village, all changed into half-pig people.
- They have the arms and legs of a pig, as well as a pig's ears and tail. Their noses are slightly stretched out. The father has large tusks and, unlike most other villagers, cannot talk.
- The spirit of the mountain. Kishu and Rakurai hear it crying as they enter.
Important Mention:
- Hiryuu's father, the village leader. After he confronted the wizard, he was killed, and the village burned.
- Hiryuu's mother, who was also killed with her husband.
Locations
- The first village is apparently on a road behind a hill. It has been burned down, leaving only 6 survivors.
- The second village lies half a day's ride west of the above village. It lies north of the mountains where the wizard's keep lay. Its inhabitants have been turned into half-human hybrids with animals.
- At the far end of town is a barn, where the villagers now hide in shame.
- Manorishi's castle lay in a steep mountain range, overlooking a deep canyon, built as if carved into the rock. It was destroyed during Kishu's transformation.
- Its entrance was guarded by a Simon-like memory game in two pedestals, powered either with magic or some kind of spirit.
Chronology
- This story takes place some time before the battle of Three Gates.